I was genuinley sad to read that Cook had passed away. These books have always been the benchmark for other fantasy reading for me, funny, inelligent, satirical and sometimes just plain daft, I loved them. Great imagination, definately deserved a larger readeship and a greater online legacy. Only recently found out that he had a 60 book plan! Great man.

What fascinates me most with Cook’s writing is his knack of totally disregarding a major plot line. Just as you think he is going to send you down one road he turns 450° and sends you somewhere completely different. One example that springs to mind is the trek to retrieve a death stone in the Wizards and the Warriors, which takes an age to get them to their destination, but a moment for them to find it already recovered in a dead soldiers pack. I was expecting a few chapters on its recovery! His use of (made-up) language also appeals to me.

They are very messy. This is usually a good thing, although I felt The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster was too long and rambling, which is odd as The Walrus and the Warwolf is my favourite.

I really liked The Werewolf and the Wormlord – it had an interesting political plot, and fantasy motifs being skewered, and a humane ending. I really enjoyed The Women and the Warlords, for much the same reasons as you, I think, but The Wicked and the Witless and The Worshippers and the Way were overall merely okay. (Although the scene with Hatch arguing with Penelope in the bath was probably the funniest scene in the whole series, after the cockroach stew.)

It’s surprising how many of them are essentially novels of politics rather than adventure – I’d say a 6/4 split, very unusual in sword and sorcery – and there are lots of cliffhanger endings, although they’re the sort that resolve the plot as well.

Incidentally, I found a whole set, mostly via eBay, so they’re difficult rather than impossible to find. Again – thanks for the recommendation – I enjoyed them a lot!

http://www.zenvirus.com

I found an ebook of the Witchlord and the Weaponmaster on an obscure torrent site but it has been altered. For example, when Thodric Jarl defeats Guest during their first fight, instead of urinating on Guest, he spits on him. Similarly, there is a scene where Onosh Gulkin throws Glambrax some left over food. In the original text, Glambrax celebrates by pretending to rape his trophy. In the ebook he juggles it.

It no longer has the impact of the original text.

If (as I suspect) the text was altered to make the books less crude/offensive for the American market, it goes a long way towards explaining the poor sales performance. It’s s real pity as Cook was an exceptionally creative and talented author who deserved much more recognition.

If you do find some, please let me know!

I wish someone would reissue them all – I think they’d do much better now than they did originally.

Actually, they’re pretty fantastic compared to most fantasy, in the sense of being strange and self-absorbed. Strange plots and random occurrences, wide ranges of locations, characters, and events, the way events are portrayed in different books, the political anarchy – not just lack of an single ruler, but the way characters go from being nobodies to major figures, the lack of respect for any kind of authority and discrimination – I think they were at least partly written against most fantasy novels. In fact, you could almost call them realistic, if it wasn’t for the demons, death-stones, giant magical hermit crabs, baby suns, weird monsters, and walking mountains.

The ones I’ve read so far are (in order) numbers 2, 6, 7, 4 and 1. One of the big pleasures is trying to work out what’s going to happen in the current book based on the already-read books – wondering when the Swarms would invade in book 1, or realising that 6 and 7 were set years before the others, or Draven and Togura’s different showings in 2 and 4. I can’t wait to find out what happens in the other books, especially with regards to the Swarms’ invasion, though I have a sneaking feeling that nothing might…

Thanks for the recommendation!